Skift Take
Big pops of airborne color help a carrier stand apart from rival silver tubes gliding through the sky. Here are the ones that inspire us.
We’re obsessed with travel branding here at Skift, and what the industry calls livery design – including color – is a big component of overall airline branding. Thus came the idea of this list of the most colorful airlines on the planet.
We would like to tell you that how hard we worked to come up with this amazing list. We would also like to brag that we agonized over the selection process, combing over the IATA code list of airlines around the planet, and narrowed it down from there. We could also tell you that there was a criteria on deciding “colorfulness” and we went through that checklist before coming up with these names.
Or we could tell you the reality: coming up with this list was just for fun, over a lazy afternoon one day last week. And then some intensive Googling after, to get the right pics for it.
Siberia S7 Airlines is headquartered in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia; it has been Russia’s fastest- growing airline and recently passed Aeroflot as Russia’s largest domestic airline. Source: Max Benidze/Flickr Air Jamaica is the current national airline of Jamaica. It has been owned and operated by Caribbean Airlines Limited since 26 May 2011. Source: Aero Icarus/Flickr Air Tahiti Nui is French Polynesia’s flag carrier airline with its head o!ce in the Immeuble Dexter in Papeete, Tahiti. Source: Dylan Agbagni/Flickr Bangkok Airways is a regional airline based in, Bangkok, Thailand. It operates scheduled services to destinations in Thailand, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Maldives, Burma, India and Singapore. Source: Aero Icarus/Flickr Cebu Pacific Air is an airline based in Manila, the Philippines. Source: Steven Byles/Flickr Edelweiss Air is headquartered in Zurich, and is now an a!liate of Swiss Air. Source: Alan Wilson/Flickr Mango is a state-owned South African low-cost airline, founded in 2006 as a subsidiary of South African Airways, that operates domestic scheduled budget services. Source: Alan Wilson/Flickr Caribbean Airlines is the national airline of Trinidad and Tobago. Source: Eric Salard/Flickr Frontier Airlines is a low-cost airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and a subsidiary and operating brand of Republic Airways. Source: Skift Korean Air is both the flag carrier and the largest airline of South Korea, with global headquarters located in Seoul, South Korea. Source: Clement Alloing/Visual Hunt Southwest Airlines is a major U.S. airline and the world’s largest low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Source: Tomas Del Coro/Flickr Hawaiian Airlines is the flag carrier and largest airline of Hawaii. It is the 11th largest commercial airline in the country, based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Source: Hawaiian Airlines Wizzair is a Hungarian low-cost airline with its head o!ce in Budapest. The airline typically uses secondary airports serving many cities across Europe. Source: Rob Hodgkins/Flickr Nok Air is the budget airline of Thai Airways, headquartered in Bangkok. Source: Jakkrit Prasertwit/Wikimedia Commons Royal Jordanian Airlines is the flag carrier of Jordan with its head o!ce in Amman, Jordan. Source: John Taggart/Flickr Fastjet is a low-cost airline with ambitions to provide a pan-African service; established in part by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet. Source: Fastjet Tuifly is a low cost airline based at Hannover Airport, Germany. It offers both charter and scheduled flights. Source: Aero Icarus/Flickr Vietnam Airlines is the national flag carrier of Vietnam. Source: Airbus
Some Observations:
- The low cost airlines do use color a lot more, to convey their sense of fun and in some cases wackiness.
- Some of it is overcompensating for the lack of other services to talk about.
- Asian airlines are more daring, in general, though low cost European ones are certainly up there.
- Legacy airlines anywhere in the world seem to use less color in general, though old timers can’t stop talking about the defunct Braniff Airlines.
- U.S. is well represented, and brands like Southwest and Hawaiian invoke their colors in sophisticated ways to enhance their message and a sense of place and history.
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Photo credit: Wizz Airlines aircraft disappears in the purple sky. Wizz Air